Then you have the psychology around food and eating and performance which is a whole other messed up bag. But to touch on this for a second...

So glad you put that out there Tape.

People need to look at riders like Fabian Cancellara, riding away from everyone at L'Eroica up the hill. He's said to weight 80kg-ish at 186cm. Not skinny, not fat. Power, not weight.

He still has low bodyfat. People confuse the ability/need to lose bodyfat with an absolute weight number. I've found I can lose bodyfat much quicker in the base period, but my weight tends not to drop as one might expect. People focus on the scale and don't see it going down and freak out.

Cancellara also has a FTP above 450w, a decent sprint, and can punch pretty hard. Its not difficult for him to be there on races with short climbs. Most people will never, ever have all of those skills. Doesn't mean they shouldn't train to, but its moot to compare onself to a pro in that regard.

Doesn't mean they shouldn't train to, but its moot to compare onself to a pro in that regard.

?

Where is the issue in taking on board that you might not be an amazing climber on ascents over 30 min in length, but if you have a killer 20-25 minute power why not work on pushing that? Without compromising your health if you're finding it hard to drop below a certain weight?

We have a local kid who is exactly that. He's the business; two seasons in Belgiu, heading back again next year and even had some chats with Alan Pieper. But found there was a limit to his weight loss, below a certain point he could never avoid getting sick and power would drop.

I meant that a person shouldn't think because Cancellara weighs 80kg and they weigh 80kg that its the same thing in terms of raw power and lean body mass. I've dealt with power loss from rapid weight loss myself, but at 6 feet 2 its not like 75-76kg is heavy. A lot of people simply shouldn't say because a pro is heavy or a pro is skinny they should be the same way. Bodyfat percentage is different than being skinny or being fat. I've yet to see a really powerful, heavier rider actually have high bodyfat like the example of Cancellara.

With that said rapid weight loss and bad habits are often the key reasons people 'lose weight' and lose power. They want to be some arbitrary number of kg by some random race or date and its often far too close in the future to create healthy change. A lot of people could lose bodyfat over a longer period say a year or 2 without losing power and probably while gaining it. Power depends entirely on the raw percentage of aerobic apendicular muscle mass as well as the efficiency of the oxidative/cardiac systems. If two people are 180lbs and one has 10% bodyfat and the other has 15% bodyfat, the fat is irrelevant only if the second rider has enough extra kg of total aerobic apendicular muscle mass to create enough power to override the difference. That is common for people on the elite level, but not your normal 50-60 l/min rider.

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